Earth
by fleurs-du-mol
Summary: Getting the body was the only favor he'd called in before disappearing: Bridget Spears couldn't move mountains for him, not with the state the government was in, but she could help one Welshman's body disappear. Post CoE, Janto.


The third time Captain Jack Harkness comes out of seclusion after the incident with the 456, it is to do something he'd never done for a team member. He's visiting a grave. Ianto's is unmarked in the middle of a moor in South Wales, but Jack knows exactly where to find it. He shivers against the wind of dusk and walks away from the car, making little sound on the lush grass.

Getting the body was the only favor he'd called in before disappearing: Bridget Spears couldn't move mountains for him, not with the state the government was in, but she could help one Welshman's body disappear.

Jack feels mildly guilty that he wouldn't tell Ianto's sister where her brother was buried. It posed too much of a risk. She would want to visit and if she visited, she could be followed, maybe questioned as to why she was there. There had been enough violence and death on Jack's behalf. Technically he and his team are still criminal suspects. So, Gwen told Rhiannon that everyone killed by the 456 virus was cremated as a precaution. Jack is used to lying, entrenched in keeping secrets, and it isn't even a very premeditated lie. Gwen tries to get him to tell her where Ianto is, but he doesn't. The refusal is penance, pragmatism, and selfishness. Belated selfishness.

Everything he and Ianto had been was steeped in Torchwood. Jack never acquiesced to Ianto's pleas that they take a holiday, even a weekend, away from Cardiff. Every time they snatched a night or a few hours of solitude, it was within hearing distance of their mobiles. Ianto never complained but when Jack had to respond—and it was always Jack who left first—there'd be a quiet look of resignation in his eyes. Like he was used to being prioritized under other things. It was distant and always evanescent, but still present.

Jack doesn't want to share Ianto's resting place with Torchwood, too, though only Gwen and Rhys remain. The vaults, archives, and cold storage are all gone. Ianto would never be a Torchwood archival entry or another frozen corpse. His things would never be put into storage with Suzie, Tosh, and Owen's. That infrastructure, that protocol, is gone.

Jack reaches the shallow pond that acts as an impromptu marker, turns left, and walks fifteen paces away. The ground is now mostly uncovered, no grass, so it's not obvious where the grave was finished. Jack chose the spot for its beauty and the way it concealed any digging. It's a little copse of oak trees sheltered between low hills. The setting sun illuminates the leaves of the trees with golden fire.

Ianto took him here, once.

He sits down, patting the dark soil. It hasn't rained so heavily that there's mud, but the dirt is damp and cool against his skin. "Hi, Yan," Jack says. He feels like he should be tired of crying, done, but there's the familiar sting of tears pulling at his eyes. "I'm sorry I haven't been back since—well, you know."

While it was relatively simple to come here, after burying the body, Jack couldn't bring himself to return. He kept recalling Ianto's weight on his shoulders as he carried him. The soft thud of dirt on Ianto's clean waistcoat as he filled the grave. Though, apart from being pale, his lips bluish, Ianto looked like he was sleeping. The virus hadn't done much to his outsides. Jack hoped and hated himself for hoping that prolonged exposure to the rift, absorbing all that energy, meant Ianto could somehow come back from death, too. But his lover wasn't a fixed point in space and time. It was a lonely child's fantasy that faded in light of fact: no one before Ianto had come back, either.

"Anyway, we're still in hiding… me, Gwen, and Rhys, I mean. Not together, though, and the government… well, honestly I'm not sure what they want to do with us. They're busy with other things. But just in case, we're on the sly."

Jack smiles and runs circles with his index finger in the dirt.

"All this free time, finally, and you're not around to take advantage of it with me. If you were here we'd go to Belgium. Get you those damn sugar waffles you wanted to try, or whatever they're really called, and a latte. But Rhiannon helped me find a place—it's a studio. You'd love it. Plenty of room for baking and making espressos. Lots of windows and a skylight. Doesn't stop me from walking around naked. It's pretty high up, so there's no chance of me being seen, unfortunately."

Ianto used to hate that Jack would meander around the Hub naked, if only because he'd gotten territorial over who could see Jack in the buff. Secretly, Jack adored it. He thought it was adorable when the tea boy got indignant and flustered, and he didn't ever stop to remind Ianto that anyone could just check the CCTV and see both of their arses, if they'd wanted. There was no part of the Hub Ianto and Jack hadn't utilized while enjoyably and utterly nude.

When the sun dips behind the green hills, the trees go from smoldering to umber. Jack stops automatically squinting against the light and tears slip down his cheeks, warm against the air.

"I shouldn't have let you come with me, that day."

He has a slew of bad moments in his history. But Ianto's death is among the few he can't stop reliving. He'd worked for Torchwood for years: he should have assumed the 456 had a defense mechanism in place. It should have been implicit, understood, part of his plans. In retrospect, it was a ridiculous oversight.

"What sort of alien would come to Earth without concealing some kind of weapon?" asks Jack, expecting the rustle of leaves or the call of one of the night birds in reply.

"A bloody stupid one," says a voice that his bones know. "Given how we humans react." Jack turns his head stiffly toward the pond, his blood pressure dropping so sharply he's surprised he doesn't faint. He's never fainted, but there's a first time for everything, and what he sees would be a considerably good reason.

Ianto makes his way toward him.

He wears jeans and an olive green jumper, the exact clothes he wore the time he and Jack had come to this place alone. "I thought you were hiding off somewhere that way." Ianto points over the hill behind him. "If you snuck back to hide here, you're doing a poor job of it talking to yourself so loudly. Not to mention," Ianto takes in Jack's buttoned coat, "you look decidedly... clothed... for someone on the hidden end of naked hide and go seek."

Jack only stares. It's Ianto. His face is flushed from being in the sun all day. A few twigs are caught on his shoes. He smells like cologne and a warm afternoon.

"What is it?" Ianto asks. "Did Gwen call us back to the Hub? Is that why you got dressed?"

Catching his breath, Jack tries to assess what he's seeing in the most logical terms. As anyone who worked for Torchwood knew, 'ghosts' were actually the result of rips in time. The question of an afterlife itself was, well, irrelevant to their mission, not to mention that Suzie had said—and so had a handful of others—what lay beyond dying was black. But they'd all been forcibly brought back, and Jack himself experienced that darkness every time he died. He suspected that in his case, it was consciousness's brief return to factory settings and didn't reflect what death was truly like.

They didn't know the extent of the rift or what results it could provoke, whether or not, but especially if, someone was dead. Ianto's body a few feet beneath him might be augmenting the Ianto standing in front of him… or it could have absolutely nothing with the situation. Impossible to tell. Jack knows he isn't a specter or wraith. In the purest sense, this is an Ianto strayed from one timeline into what's happening right now. Yet, Jack still won't come any closer to him.

"I told her not to," Ianto mutters, settling cross-legged next to Jack, who closes his eyes, praying that the warmth at his side isn't about to dissipate. The rift, being so unstable and unpredictable, could suck Ianto back without warning. If he was simply an echo, it wouldn't cause him any confusion, but if he'd literally crossed timelines, he'd return to a totally different Harkness.

If Jack remembers properly, it had been the same time of day and kind of weather, though, so that was something in his favor. Well, that, and he never deviated from his usual outfit.

"No," he says finally. "I was—cold."

"You're so not Welsh; this is nothing." Ianto raises his eyebrows, blue eyes playful.

Sitting on the edge of Jack's tongue are the words 'and you're dead,' but he knows even Ianto, with all his Torchwood training, shouldn't be expected to bear that knowledge. It isn't that if Jack explained it, he wouldn't understand. To do so seems unnecessarily cruel, and if this is an Ianto from an earlier moment in time… he could potentially alter it, alter everything. If he isn't, then it might not actually matter anyway. The echo would eventually dissipate, like ripples from a rock thrown into a stream. Jack had seen that version of what people called ghosts many times. But from the way Ianto had mentioned Jack being somewhere in the opposite direction, Jack surmises that this probably-maybe- isn't only an echo.

The idea hits him with the force of a physical blow, and he reels back a little from the younger man. "Ianto," he says, his voice full of longing.

Jack thinks he could at least tell Ianto about his involvement with the 456 the first time, in 1965. Then Ianto could do something. As soon as the thought forms, Jack mentally chastises himself. If there was one thing he learned from the Doctor—and his own condition—playing God was dangerous. If it wasn't dangerous, it hurt. Steven was dead, after all, because he'd played God, chosen one child's life to save millions.

Ianto senses the emotion behind his name and looks closely at Jack. "Hey," he says. Jack can guess his eyes are red. "What's wrong?"

It is such a simple question. "Sometimes simple questions have loaded answers," says Jack, slowly.

He wants so badly to touch Ianto as the tea boy frowns, the light gone from his eyes at Jack's visible distress. But Ianto solves that problem for him by leaning forward and tracing a gentle thumb along his cheek, wiping away cold moisture. Jack freezes until Ianto's thumb stops on his lips. He jars himself out of his stupor and kisses it.

"I wish," Ianto says softly, "that when I asked you what was wrong, you would tell me the truth." A scant finger's breadth away, Jack catches the coffee on his breath and feels the body heat radiating from him. Ianto is gloriously alive.

"Too much is wrong," whispers Jack, looking at Ianto like he can memorize his features. "I wouldn't know where to start." Ianto sighs and moves in for a kiss. A slow, quiet reassurance. Feeling Ianto's lips on his almost makes Jack break into fresh tears, though he holds back for the sake of not alarming Ianto any further. Jack may be intense when it comes to these activities, but he's never actually cried in the middle of them. It is hard, though, not to remember that the last time he kissed Ianto, he was already dead.

"Jack," says Ianto, pulling back only enough to form words and slipping an arm about the other man's waist, "let me help, if I can. No one else is here. You're not in the Hub. It's okay to be sad, or scared, or any of those emotions other than courageous and determined. And no, sexy is not an emotion."

Jack chuckles, inhaling thickly and blinking.

"All right," he says. "Okay. Please don't stop kissing me. That will help."

He twines a hand in Ianto's hair, afraid that the more tightly he holds on, the quicker this will stop happening. The sun has set almost fully now, and the sky is tinged with cobalt. Ianto's grip on his waist strengthens and he gives a tiny moan of happiness when Jack pulls him into his chest, bringing them both to the ground as they kiss again.

"Ah, yes, I see now," says Ianto, clinging to Jack with his legs and unbuttoning the coat to wrap his arms around him. "You've instigated this because you're cold." Immersing himself in the sheer feel of Ianto all around him, Jack smiles up into his face and strokes the back of his neck. "Look at me complaining."

They remain pressed together and Ianto rests his head in the crook of Jack's neck, just against his shoulder. He seems to know that Jack doesn't quite want to be totally physical: that this time is different even if he doesn't understand the reason. Then Jack says something he can't remember having said to Ianto.

"I want you to stay with me." He clears his throat, concentrating on the flickering stars appearing above them. "I need you to stay." As he says it, he realizes that it was true, and had been true long before Ianto died. It only needed to be said out loud.

Ianto brushes his lips along Jack's neck. "Thank you."

"I'm serious."

"No, I know. But thank you for telling me, finally."

Jack tenses. "Well..." He thinks of all the indications that Ianto should expect that he is nothing more than another lover and cringes. "You believe it, right?"

"Of course." The two words are delivered with the utmost confidence, peacefully, into his ear.

"But you're afraid of other things," says Jack.

Curling so that he can cuddle Jack, Ianto says, "Is that what's bothering you? See, that's how I can tell you need me."

"What?"

"The fear in your eyes when you think I might consider telling you it's too much—that look doesn't happen often, but sometimes. I'm not naïve, Jack. We're Torchwood. I realize you're either going to bury me—" Jack's arm twitches—"or outlive me, watch me grow old and unattractive and unable to work an espresso machine. Like with Estelle—and I certainly don't expect you to have loved only me. But I can hope you won't forget me in hundreds of years."

"Yan."

Ianto's voice grows sad. "One nondescript, sarcastic Welshman in all the universe. That's what I'm afraid of… that one day you'll wake up, unable to recall my name or the way I made you feel, even if you can barely remember my face. Not you leaving me for anyone else, although maybe I used to be."

Fiercely, Jack gathers Ianto to him. "No." He tries to put the urgency of all the protests that are springing to mind into the embrace. "That's never going to happen. And not just because your arse is anything but nondescript."

Ianto smirks at him, burrowing into his coat. "Oy, we were having a moment," he says, pretending to be offended.

"We are having one, still."

"Right," says Ianto. "You look exhausted." He strokes hair back from Jack's face in a proprietary gesture. "Too much hiking for the captain, eh? Take a rest, go to sleep if you'd like—I'll wake you when it's time to leave for the Hub. Gwen's got samples from the drugged weevil that we—"

"No," says Jack, almost panicking at the suggestion.

He arches up as Ianto tries to resettle, unbalancing him into a passionate kiss. Ianto, taken off guard, allows himself to be restrained by Jack's weight. With the darkness intensifying around them, they soon resort to vivid touch, eyes tired of straining and voices giving way to groans of pleasure. Jack abandons himself in Ianto, expressing with his body what his words have failed to convey. It doesn't feel like enough; it will never feel like enough even if he has a multitude of nights to assure Ianto he not only loves, but needs, him. He is offering less of an apology, more an affirmation. As the moon rises and the breeze grows colder, Jack's mind is full of Ianto: his rapid heartbeat, the scent of his sweat, the sound of his lovely voice crying Jack's name, all its wry self-control deserted.

They finish much more quickly than usual, but as they pant, trying to breathe normally, Jack feels some measure of peace.

"Okay," says Ianto, with Jack draped across him, "I will take that over naked hide and go seek whenever you feel like it. Less running." He strokes his palm down Jack's spine.

"Mmmm."

"Are we not talking yet? Sorry."

"Don't be. I'm sure you have an alarm or something set?" he says to Ianto, who murmurs an affirmative and pulls him close. He disliked it when Jack withdrew right after coming, which made post-sex bliss in that situation interesting by virtue of Jack weighing more than Ianto, and their position often being creative.

Lulled into a sense of warm completion, Jack resolves to close his eyes only for a second when he hears, and feels, Ianto's breaths stilling into those of slumber.

It is only when he starts to drift to sleep that the reality of the situation crashes into his brain. He jerks fully awake. But Ianto is still beneath him. They are flesh, warm and living. Jack deliberates briefly before laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. Ianto opens his eyes reluctantly. "What?"

Hesitating, Jack says, "Nothing. Good night, Ianto." It sounds less final than a good-bye and makes just as little sense in this context.

"It's not bedtime, Jack. I wish it was," he says, dreamily, looking over Jack's shoulder. "We've got—exactly an hour, if the sky's telling the truth."

Trust Ianto to know how to tell time with the stars. A useless skill in normally cloudy Wales.

"Okay."

"We could just play hooky."

"We could," agrees Jack, his voice cracking as he looks into Ianto's smiling face, able to make out the glint of eyes and teeth in moonlight.

"And have all night if you say so, captain. You're the boss."

Jack closes his eyes and breathes in, hugging Ianto. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"


End file.
